rumitoid

This is the site: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/our-broken-constitution

Very interesting and intriguing and deep dive into the currents of Democracy. It is long, somewhat tedious, and erudite. Probably not to the taste of many here, who seem to prefer 10 second sound bites. Yet it will surprise and disappoint many more with its revelations about the pronounced failures inherent in what most see as a venerable and miraculous, perhaps God-inspired, document. Sacred. In reading this piece, I am of the opinion it is not anything like that. Every time it has been tried in other countries, it has failed miserably and led to oppressive governments. Its longest lifespan was about ten years but the average was five. How did it appear to work here for so long? It really didn't.

Here is an excerpt to excite or dull your taste buds: "In creating the national legislature, the delegates had to address the issue of s***ery. Although s***es weren’t citizens and couldn’t v**e, the Southern states wanted them to be included in the calculation of the over-all population, in order to boost the region’s representation in the House. The North thought that the s***es should not count at all.

"In a way, the negotiated solution reflected the shameful reality that s***es in the United States were judged less than fully human. The standoff led to a notorious compromise: for purposes of apportioning seats in the House, each s***e would count as three-fifths of a person. As the University of Pennsylvania historian Richard Beeman noted, in 'Plain, Honest Men,' his 2009 account of the Convention, the debate over the three-fifths rule took place with 'a near-total absence of anything resembling a moral dimension.'”

Smedley_buzkill

This differs from the way s***es had been perceived for thousands of years HOW?
Like most Liberals, you judge the morals of the people of a bygone era by modern Liberal standards. Morality is malleable, and is dictated by exigent circumstances.
S***ery was considered a normal practice for most of the history of humanity, yet Liberals seem to think that it began and ended in 18th and 19th century North America.
Liberals constantly gripe about the evils of s***ery in this country while absolutely ignoring the FACT that the practice continued legally in Africa until the 21st Century, and still is practiced world wide.
Amnesty International estimates there are currently about 20 million people held in some sort of involuntary servitude in the world, yet rather than address this very real problem, Liberals blame white Europeans for all of the attendant evils, even though it is mostly practiced today in Africa and the Middle East. It doesn't count there because evil w***e A******ns are not responsible for it, apparently.
Liberals, with their parochial, myopic and self-serving, self-righteous talking points, ignore any wrongdoing that is not wrought by w***e A******ns.

rumitoid

Way too funny. You perpetually avert talking about the topic. Do you do that in front of a mirror? Address the topic and not your image.

Smedley_buzkill

I had plenty of practice reading your posts. Who needs a mirror?

Idaho

The article is interesting - one or two issues with your introduction of it (like calling the US a democracy, which it is not and was never intended to be). The article has some wrong-headed views - like saying Obama taught constitutional law for 10 years - that’s an urban myth for which evidence has not been disclosed.

Morgan

I would have to say the Constitution may not have been in the best intention for all, but that has been addressed and remedied through amendments, which also included, long after black men, came women. I decline on the notion the constitution was ever broken, and is a beautiful example of a ~Living~ evergreen document. Kudos to that.

Gatsby

From the "Great Compromise" to a notorious compromise?

True only for those who h**e our Constitution, and the Liberty that it enshrines!!

Iliamna1

Our constitutional republic beats nearly every other government in the world, which is why so many people are still v****g with their feet to get here.

Morgan

A republic is defined as a representative democracy.

rumitoid

Read the article to better understand. It thoroughly addresses the so-called remedies of amendments.

rumitoid

You said, "Like most Liberals, you judge the morals of the people of a bygone era by modern Liberal standards. Morality is malleable, and is dictated by exigent circumstances." This is absurd, a false premise. There were firm objections to s***ery back then but the Congress allowed it for financial reasons, they needed the South, even more diabolical.

Morality is not malleable. That is what immoral or amoral men tell themselves in an attempt to vindicate themselves for their self-centered and selfish abuses.

Iliamna1

I am quite thankful that the process to change the Constitution has been made difficult. Yes, it does present challenges, but it has been done, many times, by a large plurality of the population. But it also makes it difficult for passing fads or for a small majority to take advantage of the checks and balances implemented in that document. It protects your rights and my rights.

Smedley_buzkill

Apparently your knowledge of history begins in 1787 or thereabouts and is confined to the fifty United States. There is nothing absurd about my premise. For most of history s***ery was considered a normal way of doing things. The divine right of kings was considered moral. The Catholic Church burned inconvenient people at the stake and stole their wealth and it was considered moral. Muslims brought fire and sword to half the known world and it was considered moral by them, and moral to k**l them by their opponents. S***es were chattel through most of history. One hundred fifty years ago, public floggings and h*****gs were considered moral and proper.
One more time. Morals are individual and societal survival traits. In the harsher world of times past, harsher things were considered right and proper. Whether you like it or not, when you sit on top of the molehill of obstacles you face compared to the summit of the mountain of problems that people of times past had to contend with. It must be a hard thing to realize that your own myopic worldview of what is moral is not even always relevant to today, much less to hundreds or thousands of years ago.
Morals are malleable. Morality is determined by physical reality. What you consider moral today would be considered lunacy by people a thousand years ago.

Iliamna1

Amen and Amen. IMHO, a Great post.

rumitoid

It does a mighty fair job, remarkably.